St. Matthew 13:24-30
Dear Friends, I had my introduction into this parable of the weeds and the wheat when I was a sophomore in high school. It was the time of the McCarthy hearings on TV. The politics of the day were about the infiltration of Communists into our government and society. I was very interested in this topic.At first, it was very confusing because there were two items that were very clear in my world. Communists were as bad as you could get and Catholics were good. As the TV drama evolved, I slowly experienced an assault on my Catholic prejudice. Even though Senator McCarthy was against the Communists and a Catholic, he was being labelled as the bad guy. I painfully began to realize he was indeed the bad guy, the really bad guy. His broad and indiscriminate strokes of accusation left a long path of innocent victims. Justice got lost in the heat of the quest for political advantage. Eventually, he was censored by the Senate. This was one of only three such condemnations in the history of our country.
This was the beginning of a lifetime journey where the clear black and white of my world had to give way to an acceptance of the grey of a complex world, a world where the weeds and wheat were growing side by side.
Today’s parable of the weeds and the wheat, like all the parables, speaks to us of the coming of God’s kingdom, Jesus’ main message. As we enter into the parable, we begin to learn how we experience the presence and action of God in our daily life. It is clear that God is in charge of the harvest. We tend to take over the job. Most of us have at least a Master’s degree in determining the good guys from the bad guys. Jesus would rather that we let the Father take on that task. That is why a turned cheek is much more in tune with Jesus’ message than a clenched fist.
Among other things, this parable is calling us to an ever-expanding vision of including and accepting others. God is calling us to share God’s patience and mercy. Our heart is a field with plenty of weeds that incline us to divide and separate and isolate. The parable of the weeds and the wheat opens up the mystery of the justice and mercy of God.
If I just take the topics of race, sexual orientation and respect for women in my own personal experience, I can see an abundance of blindness, ignorance, open hostility and profound prejudice ebbing and flowing to a very painful evolution of change. The coming of the Kingdom has slowly challenged me to grow in tolerance, trust and patience. Self-knowledge only comes with this openness to God’s call to be compassionate and patient. Self-knowledge will always reveal a heart blossoming with a full harvest of both the weeds and the wheat. The struggle will continue to the end.
The guidance of today’s parable will lead us to separate evil from the evildoer, sin from the sinner. We are all better off nurturing the wheat by living the gospel. Too much energy goes into the weeds as we sit in judgement of our brothers and sisters. We are all better off if our main task if following the meek and humble Christ. God is quite capable of discerning how to deal with the weeds within us personally and within our sisters and brothers.
St. Teresa of Avila had a very gifted and graced understanding of herself. Even though she eventually would become recognized as the first woman Doctor of the Church and a famous Carmelite saint, she clearly saw her weeds. She knew her life was a gift from God. She said often, the story of her life was ultimately the story of God’s mercy. She truly had tolerance for others, trust in God and patience with herself. She understood, as we need to understand today, that God’s kingdom is coming and with it comes the love and mercy and justice we see revealed in Jesus. In the meanwhile, God wants us to be the faithful labors of the harvest.
